Pulled over and pregnant: Howell traffic stop sparks debate

A Lakewood couple expressed indignation when a Howell police officer pulled them over for going 78 miles per hour in a 50 zone on their way to deliver a baby. But township police said their officer did the right thing. Courtesy Howell Township Police
Alex N. Gecan

HOWELL - A township police officer's ticketing of a hospital-bound motorist for speeding — as the driver's passenger went into labor — touched off a continuing furor online and over the radio waves about policing. Nearly everybody has an opinion.

The anonymous couple called the incident a "harrowing ordeal," police officials defended the officer and readers drew battle lines in polls and social media posts.

Public opinion is running decidedly against the ticketing officer, but a police policy expert told the Press there are no hard-and-fast rules or catch-all answers for when an officer discovers a stopped driver or passenger in distress.

There is, however, a guiding principle, one expert said: Treat them how you would want an officer to treat you.

"Police work is full of instances where police officers do things that are technically correct, they're legally, by policy, correct, but they may not be as compassionate as they could have been or should have been," said Jim Bueermann, president of the national Police Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit research organization.

Police confirmed that, in a 9-minute, 29-second traffic stop, Marotto ticketed the driver for driving 78 mph shortly before midnight in a 50-mph zone on Squankum Road. The driver told Marotto that the woman's water had broken, but she was "not pushing yet," according to a statement from township police.

Of 1,600 people who took a Press online poll by 3:30 p.m. Tuesday afternoon, 1,076 said Marotto was wrong to have issued a summons.

Contacted through an intermediary, the couple declined to comment to the Press, but in an anonymous post on The Lakewood Scoop the driver called the stop a "harrowing ordeal" and said the baby arrived as soon as they arrived at a hospital, 20 minutes after the traffic stop.

Township police defended Marotto, saying the "officer acted appropriately, and any suggestion that the officer’s conduct was improper, unprofessional or inhumane simply contradicts the video evidence" in the statement, forwarded by Detective Sgt. Christian Antunez.

Bueermann, who was also chief of police in Redlands, California, from 1998 to 2011, said he could not speak to the Howell traffic stop specifically, but rather explained how officers can use their judgment in the field.

"There's two kinds of discussions that departments have with their officers when they have done something. One is that, you know, 'follow policy and you did the right thing,'" said Bueermann. "Another discussion might be, 'You followed policy, technically you did the right thing, but let's talk about other options you had available to you that might have had better outcomes.'"

Those options include sending motorists on their ways if they can get to hospitals safely, or issuing summonses at a later date in jurisdictions set up to issue tickets after the fact.

But providing an escort to a hospital — as many internet comments have suggested — is "problematic," Bueermann said.

"You open up a whole liability issue," he explained. "The officer would have formed a special relationship with (the driver) that would have legal implications if they crash."

An officer can also tail a motorist to a hospital to make sure claims of medical emergencies are legitimate, Bueermann said, or offer to summon an ambulance – which Marotto did, several times, police said. The couple declined.

Bueermann said it would be impossible for any legislative body to issue guidelines covering every possible police interaction.

"As a general statement, most state laws and most department policies give direction to officers to follow the spirit of the law versus the letter of the law," he said.

The Press has requested dashboard and body camera footage from the traffic stop and copies of any tickets or summonses issued to the driver. The township has not yet provided them.

See for yourself - watch the video at the top of the article, and this one as well:

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A Lakewood couple expressed indignation when a Howell police officer pulled them over for going 78 miles per hour in a 50 zone on their way to deliver a baby. But township police said their officer did the right thing. Courtesy Howell Township Police
Alex N. Gecan